Interference effect in elastic parton energy loss in a finite medium

Abstract

Similar to the radiative parton energy loss due to gluon bremsstrahlung, elastic energy loss of a parton undergoing multiple scattering in a finite medium is demonstrated to be sensitive to interference effect. The interference between amplitudes of elastic scattering via a gluon exchange and that of gluon radiation reduces the effective elastic energy loss in a finite medium and gives rise to a non-trivial length dependence. The reduction is most significant for a propagation length $L<4/\pi T$ in a medium with a temperature $T$. Though the finite size effect is not significant for the average parton propagation in the most central heavy-ion collisions, it will affect the centrality dependence of its effect on jet quenching.

Comments: 6 pages with two postscript figures. New version with few typos corrected and brief discussions added